Forum:Succession Boxes
Once again Jonathan seems to have jumped from one extreme to another. A few weeks ago he dropped the succession box for Joseph Stalin leading to this discussion. Given that, he has now started shoehorning in a number of succession boxes that are identical to OTL and not relevant to or mentioned in the ATL. (See a couple of new talk page sections I have started.) I think we need a discussion to come to some sort of agreement as to when a succession box is warranted. ML4E (talk) 17:22, July 6, 2016 (UTC) :Just to kick things off, I would propose that the box should meet none of the following criteria: # It's identical to OTL, where the OTL box already appears; # The title is never used in the story; # We are missing information for completing it, unless we're at either end of a long, unbroken chain of successive entries (eg, Don Partridge as TL-191 POTCS); # There is only one holder in a given ATL; and # The person held a title in OTL before a POD but not after. Turtle Fan 18:28, 6 July 2016‎ ::I freely admit I've been pretty inconsistent in using succession boxes myself. Initially, I figured the more minor historical figures probably didn't need boxes if they held the same office in an AH work that they did in OTL, but otherwise played a small role in the overall story. For example, Jonathan recently added succession boxes to António de Oliveira Salazar‎. I never added ATL boxes for him because he's just a quick one-off reference in MWiH and TWPE, so yeah, duh, he must have the same office and who cares? ::But then there's Stalin, who, while, never appearing directly in e.g., MWiH or TWPE, is still very important to the broad history of those respective timelines, and is referenced multiple times throughout each. And while he's never replaced within the four corners of either work, I felt that acknowledging via the succession boxes that Stalin is still the de facto ruler of the USSR in both of those works would be helpful for users/readers who don't necessarily want to read through subsections of the article for the answer. And since I think that's a useful thing for the important figures, the Stalins, the FDRs, the Churchills, I guess we should probably apply that to the not-unimportant figures like the Salazars. ::Now, one rule we did establish somewhere along the line was that if we didn't have a predecessor or a successor, then we should't use the box. That should stay in place. We've been somewhat elastic as to immediacy; so long as some predecessor or successor was ID'd in text, we've gone with the "last known/next known" modifiers. I think that's also user-friendly and should stay, especially with offices like Governor-General of the North American Union, where several historical figures held an office that does not exist in OTL. TR (talk) 18:39, July 6, 2016 (UTC) The one case that I find really irritating is the Joe Steele succession box for George VI of Britain (see talk here). It seems to me that some minor historical figures are too minor. Especially when they are throw-aways like this. Maybe the Salazars should get the ATL boxes though even if there isn't much more substance in the work. ML4E (talk) 19:05, July 6, 2016 (UTC) :::Looks like TF's post and my post overlapped. I think my post addressed several of his proposed criteria. As I said, I was essentially following 1) for some time. I think 3) may be too rigid, per my G-GNAU example And 4) is pretty much the crux of my Stalins vs. Salazars debate-Stalin is usually pretty important in the broad history, so noting the fact he held the office is arguably worth doing, Salazar not so much. TR (talk) 22:11, July 6, 2016 (UTC) ::::1) is as you say. ::::2) was directed at the Prince of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland in "Uncle Alf" that ML4E objected to earlier. ::::Now that you mention it I'd be willing to reconsider 3). I'm okay, for instance, with the chain that goes Franklin D Roosevelt-Cordell Hull . . . Earl Warren-Harold Stassen . . . Joyce Peterman . . . If HT had somehow written the entire Col trilogy without once mentioning the POTUS, I would think that Roosevelt-Hull . . . Peterman would probably not be worthwhile. ::::When I wrote 4) I was thinking of a pair of boxes we used to have for Benjamin Wade and George Norris. Obviously Wade is the only OTL Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, so there can be no OTL succession box. If memory serves, we did have a box listing his predecessor as None and his successor as "None (OTL); a period of vacancy, then George Norris (Southern Victory." Norris had a 191-specific box that listed "A period of vacancy following Benjamin Wade" as his predecessor and "None" as his successor (I think that was before we started writing "Incumbent as of end of the story"). Now strictly speaking, 4) may not technically apply to Wade, because I can't imagine his committee was dissolved the second the courier recovered the Lost Orders, but come on. If, however, we'd had a whole string of Chairmen, I'd be okay with listing Wade as the predecessor in the box of the first who appeared in the story, as we've sort of done with Galusha Grow in the Seymour Stedman article or whoever the OTL commander of the 1st Richmond Howitzers was in the OTL Antietam Campaign (McCarthy, I think?) in the Jeb Stuart III article. ::::5) is going to be the main point of contention, I think. I could accept looking the other way on Stalin if it were just the three of us, but with Jonathan around we have to spell everything out or he'll dance around the spirit of the law. I'd rather sacrifice Stalin than muddle through a deluge of dozens of utterly useless Salazars. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:31, July 7, 2016 (UTC) Jonathan has added story succession boxes for Chiang Kai-Shek, Arnulfo Arias, Miklos Horthy and Kim Il-sung based on OTL situation. Have we agreed to this? This is point 4) and the above is not completely clear on what, if anything, has been decided. ML4E (talk) 21:51, July 7, 2016 (UTC) :Horthy was certainly in power longer than in OTL in TWPE. Arias is also evidently in power well past May, 1951 in THW. Chiang's fate may be impacted by the events of THW. And Kim does appear to have been more firmly in power in JS in 1945 than he was in OTL. :So, from my perspective, those are all reasonably useful. I won't weep if they vanish, either (except for maybe Chiang, as I said, he could be back in Beijing in THW 3). TR (talk) 22:39, July 7, 2016 (UTC) ::I don't see any purpose to any of these boxes. I find the ones for Kim Il-Sung particularly irksome: What possible use is there to a box for an office that only had one holder? I didn't bother saying that a succession box should have some succession, because I didn't want to insult anyone's intelligence by pointing out the blindingly obvious. ::I also see that Jonathan's invented the phrase "incumbent as of most recent volume." I find this hopelessly unnecessary. Characters in ongoing works already carry a work-in-progress disclaimer that should cover that. :::We've been doing that for years. TR (talk) 03:19, July 8, 2016 (UTC) :::Really? Wow. Never noticed. My objection stands, though. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:39, July 8, 2016 (UTC) ::And of course you're right that no final decisions have been reached yet. For this reason I'm furious that Jonathan has continued with his boxes while a discussion of a problem that he created (as if there's any other kind these days) is ongoing. We've suffered this fool for over a year now, and his contempt for administrative policy keeps getting worse and worse. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:43, July 8, 2016 (UTC) So lets see if we can get some consensus here rather than me rolling back an impatient Jonathan. I just changed back Konrad Henlein based on the Talk Page and Friedrich Werner von der Schulenberg yesterday since the reference was so trivial. Now it seems to me the latter article would be deleted if we go with TR's suggestion of a "References to Historical Figures and Events" article so the succession box becomes moot. The problem with the deleted ATL Henlein box was it supposed the Sudeten German Party continued to exist after his assassination rather than disappearing in November as it did in OTL. That is possible, given WWII started a year early over Czechoslovakia but none of the novels in the series stated this so the box was a problem. We could add caveats to it but eliminating the ATL box seems the better option. It seems to me that point 1) and 3) apply in this case. :No point to Henlein's at all. Now that the story's over, we know HT never said boo about the fate of the Sudeten party, and he had six years to do it. Clearly he didn't give a shit, so why should we? :And Kim Il-Sung also needs to go. Turtle Fan (talk) 05:12, July 15, 2016 (UTC) Any other attempts to formulate or specify a policy? Jonathan, feel free to comment but do not feel free to simply edit articles. ML4E (talk) 17:00, July 14, 2016 (UTC) :I think TF's criteria is a solid start, but I'm hesitant to agree to the rule that the box should meet none of the criteria. We should have something slightly more flexible, because it does seem that whenever we set an absolute rule, something comes along and creates an exception. TR (talk) 17:50, July 14, 2016 (UTC) ::I'm okay with softening it. We could say a box can meet no more than one of these criteria, or even no more than two. Turtle Fan (talk) 05:12, July 15, 2016 (UTC)